


Memories of the Wild

by CavannaRose



Series: Dragon Age Stories [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst and Feels, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Heavy Angst, Memories, Sorrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose
Summary: King Alistair thinks about the one he lost to gain a crown he did not even want.





	Memories of the Wild

She was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. Even during that first, awkward meeting he had been struck by her natural grace. Everything about her was opposite to what he was. She was a Dalish elf, raised wild and free, he a bastard-born human, raised first in the strict roles of a stable boy, and then in the even more oppressive constraints of the Chantry. He was broad and tall, she lithe and petite. He was pale with short blonde hair, she was dark of skin, with ebony hair that fell down her back in a complicated braid. Most striking were her vallaslin, almost invisible in the dark, but when the light hit her skin they shone across her face with the pride of her people.

She had many skills, but her talent with the bow was beyond compare. She could have three shots strung and loosed before he'd drawn his sword from his scabbard... so the fact that she had taken up a sword when she fought the Arch-demon confused him all the more. She was a hero... but a dead one, and the part of him that was still broken inside raged against that very fact. The loss had shattered their motley crew. Sten had traveled back to his homeland, and, after a mourning period, Dog had gone with him. Alistair had been surprised, but the two had a bond, and perhaps the Qunari felt deeper than he expected. Certainly Mahariel had always maintained as much. Wynne had returned to the Circle. Morrigan all but disappeared, as did Leliana. Oghren had returned to Orzammar. Zevran... well, the elf had a mission of his own, and even a king dare not stand in the way, not with the pain that was plain on the elf's tattooed face. If anyone had loved Mahariel as deeply as Alistair, it was the former Crow. They all owed so much to her, but without her their ties to one another melted away.

Perhaps they had been hunted fugitives, with darkspawn haunting their every step, but the companionship Alistair had found on that journey filled his lonely heart. Even those that at first needled him, he grew to respect. They had each other's back, and he would have trusted any one of them in any situation by the end. He missed them all, but pride kept him from reaching out. Occasionally Wynne would write, but her health was failing, and he was afraid that her time on this earth was almost up. He did not want to lose another friend, and so that connection, too, he had let fall to the wayside. Fear was his constant companion these days.

He shook the dark thoughts from his head, thinking instead of the way she'd moved through the woods, as if every rock and twig was a part of her, placed just so to make her seem effortless and graceful. Never more than a handful of steps behind, he felt like a lumbering beast. Armour clinking and boots tromping loudly through the underbrush, he sounded like thunder in the wake of her silence. He didn't envy her, the way she seemingly floated over terrain that he could merely wade through, he was too busy admiring her for that. He did envy the way Arainai could keep pace, as if their elvehn heritage linked them in some way he could not share.

More than anything, though, he loved to watch her hunt. The way the tips of her ears twitched at the slightest sound, the way her nose wrinkled as caught a scent on the wind. She was like a prayer, awakening within him the reverence that the Chantry could never instill. Perhaps the thought was blasphemous, but it was hardly his first, and it was unlikely to be his last. She had a unity with the natural world, moreso than other Dalish he had encountered, though they had been relatively few before his adventures with the Hero of Ferelden.

He remembered the one afternoon, their companions resting back at the camp, she had allowed him to accompany her out on the hunt, even though his very presence made the task more difficult. She had been crouched atop a boulder, scouting ahead, when suddenly she had stood, tossing her hair and tilting her head to one side as she turned back to look at him. The early morning light had just barely illuminated her vallaslin, and when she had caught him staring, she merely winked, and then leapt from the rock, vanishing into the trees before he could even stand. Everything about her left him in turmoil. She was wild and deep, ephemeral.

Finally his mind drifted to the last time they had spent alone together. It was the morning before the Landsmeet, and they had been lying in his bedroll together, limbs tangled and sweaty, all that glorious hair of hers loose around them. She'd woken him with a kiss, their lovemaking frantic. Finally she had placed her hands on his cheeks, meeting his gaze, her eyes sadder than he'd ever seen them before. "You should marry Anora."

Her words went through him like a lightening bolt, searing at his insides. How could she say such a thing... he loved her! He protested, trying to explain, but she had placed a delicate finger on his lips. He cried, running calloused fingers over her vallaslin as he shook his head in protest. "Ferelden would never accept an elven queen, and I could never watch you with another. The people need your kind heart to lead them, and Anora is wily enough to guide you through the traps of the nobles. Please Alistair... you know that this is the best choice. I love you, but there are more important things than the love of two people." She whispered reassurances, stroking his arm and kissing his tear-stained lips, but she was unshakable. It was like she had already suspected what Riordan would tell them later.

He had been the one to fetch her body from the battlefield, Dog faithfully at her side, even in death. They mourned her, entombed her at Weisshaupt as befit a Warden Hero, but it still felt wrong. As he watched Dog leave with Sten, he couldn't help but think of the wild Dalish he had first met, wind in her hair and bow in her hand. A grand stone tomb wasn't right, but even a King could be overruled, and the people wanted the monument. He never went there, when he mourned her. Instead he went to the woods, found himself a boulder and sat, listening to the life around him. That was where he felt closest to her memory. That was where he remembered what life was like when he wished to live it.


End file.
